Grassroots or astroturf? AT&T and the politics of influence

Ars takes a closer look at connections between AT&T and the Advanced …

In the course of our earlier reporting on AT&T's attempt to deploy IPTV to the Chicago suburbs, we discussed the Advanced Technology Alliance. It's an interest group that pushes the AT&T agenda hard through letters to the editor and a giant chicken, but local critics have charged it with being an "astroturf" (that is, a fake "grassroots" effort) group funded by AT&T. Ars has now learned more details about the relationship between the two companies.

The ATA's domain name, www.iltechalliance.org, is currently registered to Domains by Proxy, an Arizona business that helps obscure the true owner of a web site. A source tells us that the organization's registration had not initially been through Domains by Proxy, though, but through a prominent Chicago public relations firm. Ars Technica has now been able to verify that information independently.

Earlier this year, the WHOIS record for iltechalliance.org pointed to Jasculca/Terman and Associates of Chicago, a PR firm that specializes in "bringing the tactics and discipline of political campaign work to the management of issues and events for private, public and institutional clients."

Jasculca/Terman's services include "grassroots outreach and coalition building" for their clients. Significantly, AT&T is listed among those clients.

For an example of how the firm works, consider the campaign it ran on behalf of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, a group that wanted to raise "additional tax revenues" (read: expand gambling in Illinois). Jasculca/Terman helped them to stage a massive letter-writing campaign by organizing meetings with casino employees, mailings to casino customers, a website, and "action stations" at casinos. They managed to sign on more than 6,000 people.

Jasculca/Terman specializes in this sort of political PR. According to their website, they can help businesses change the law by stirring up consumers. "If we're going to get this law changed," says a hypothetical CEO, "we need to treat this thing like a political campaign and generate more public support for our position." And that's where J/T comes in.

Rick Jasculca, a co-founder of J/T, serves on the board of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, a position in which he met Rachel Roemke, the woman who founded and now runs the ATA. She used to work at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce before seeing the need "to help create a healthy competitive environment in the cable and TV industry," as she tells Ars.

For a grassroots organization, there's not much evidence of local involvement or of transparency, though: the group does not disclose board members, membership rolls, or donor records. It does not list an address but a PO box. It lists no staff or contacts apart from Roemke. It has no obvious local structures or branches. It calls IPTV the "technology of the future" (neither Verizon nor satellite providers offer IPTV; only AT&T is rolling it out nationally). And it does not give any contact information for its domain name; in fact, the information was deliberately obscured by switching it from J/T to Domains by Proxy.

"Do you receive any money from AT&T?"

AT&T and the ATA have both refused to answer questions about AT&T's support of the group, although AT&T does tell us that it is not a member. Skepticism about the ATA's independence was evident in both my own conversations with local government leaders and during city council meetings at which Roemke appears. She appeared at one such meeting earlier this year in Naperville, a wealthy western suburb that was considering whether it would allow AT&T's IPTV into town without a build-out requirement.

After delivering a brief speech to the council, Roemke had the following exchange with one of the councilmen (watch the meeting [WMV]):

"Do you live in Naperville?" he asks. "I do not." "Okay, if you lived in Naperville, would you be in favor of this if this product was offered some residents but was not offered to you?" "I'm in favor of allowing more choices for consumers." "Regardless of whether it was made available to you or not? Because that's what could happen." "Choices will drop—will—choices will drop rates—" "So it doesn't bother you that part of the city could be served and part of the city could not be served?" "I am pro-choice, I want more choices, I can't..." "Even though you may not have the choice, if you lived here?" "I don't live here."

And then second councilman takes a shot at getting a straight answer from Roemke.

"Do you receive any money from AT&T?" he asks. "I am not—we have a privacy policy that we do not disclose information about our members." "Do you receive any money from Lucent?" "We have a privacy policy—" "How about Alcatel?" "I'm not at liberty to talk about our contributions." "Were you the folks that released the thing on the Internet with the chicken on it?"

This last bit is a reference to Plucky, the giant chicken, and it shows that the councilmen are paying attention to this ATA campaign as it plays out publicly in the region. Roemke's refusal to answer direct questions about her funding sources recalls Rep. Ed Markey's (D-MA) questioning earlier this year of Julia Johnson, who appeared before Congress to offer testimony on telecommunications issues. Johnson headed a group much like the ATA, and Markey smelled astroturf.

Markey: Is your organization financially supported by the Bell [telephone] companies in any way? Johnson: No, we?re not. Markey: At all. Johnson: Yes, and let me elaborate upon that too. We?re a relatively new organization. Markey: No, that's OK. I can go along with that answer. That?s fine. Thank you. And are you compensated in any way by the Bell companies? Johnson: I have a consulting firm that works for a variety of companies, generally in the regulatory space. Markey: But are the Bell companies amongst those companies that pay you? Johnson: Yes.

None of this proves anything, of course. Roemke may well have started the ATA for the noblest of reasons, to help consumers and to boost the local economy. When asked about the links between her site and J/T, she told Ars, "When I was first starting this organization, I was looking for technical help on website issues and asked J/T to help. I was familiar with their work when I was employed by the Chicagoland Chamber." Where a "grassroots" startup founded by one woman obtained the money to contact a well-connected PR firm is not clear, and neither J/T nor AT&T responded to requests for comment.

The point is simply that AT&T now invites this sort of scrutiny because of their past actions. Common Cause released a report (PDF) earlier this year that investigated five industry front groups masquerading as grassroots consumer organizations. AT&T appears to have been involved (directly or indirectly) with all of them.

Sponsoring front groups is not an approach to politics that encourages local authorities to trust your company, though local authorities may have little control over AT&T now that the FCC has just made major rule changes to the local franchising process.

The issue of astroturf groups has become a political and legal one in Illinois, with Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn holding a news conference three days ago to applaud the Illinois Commerce Commission. The ICC is now investigating financial ties between ComEd and a front group called CORE, or Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity (read: in support of a pending January rate hike). Quinn had petitioned the ICC to investigate the millions of dollars spent by CORE that went to buy "deceptive television commercials." Could a government crackdown on the practice of astroturfing rein it in? First Amendment protections probably mean no, but more disclosure of funding sources could be mandated.